With the bells of beautiful Ampleforth Abbey peeling in celebration, Sky made it a hat trick of British National Road Race Championships titles; strong man Ian Stannard following on from Geraint Thomas in 2010 and Bradley Wiggins in 2011.
It feels good just writing the words, Ian Field National Champion. I left you at the end of my last blog sat on the sofa watching the Superprestige race in Diegem unable to race due to a back injury.
When we heard on Sunday that our blogger Ian Field had won the British Cyclo-Cross Championship on a dry and sunny day in Suffolk, we wanted to celebrate that win with a chat.
George Atkins was a name that suddenly appeared on the Scottish scene back in the summer. And on Sunday the versatile man from Leicester took silver in the British U23 Time Trial Championships, but before his foray into the world of riding 'alone and unpaced', he spent six weeks in Flanders, so naturally we needed to have a word with him, not long before the British Champs.
Cervelo's Dan Fleeman left it late to take his first win of the year; but it took him just 3 minutes 18 seconds to convert late season road form to victory in the most specialist and punishing of races-the British Hill Climb Championship, on the 1100 metre Pea Royd Lane climb near Sheffield, England on Sunday.
Kristian House of Rapha-Condor won, Chris Froome was man of the match and there was plenty of sunshine. That's the British Champs in a nutshell, it really was a great day.
The 2006 season was a great one for James McCallum; it's not every year you win a Commonwealth Games medal. It seemed like it would take a lot to top 2006; how does the 2007 British Criterium Championships and the most glamorous crit in Britain sound?
Back in the UK, to win the British Cycling time trial championships, David Millar took time out of his busy schedule to speak to VeloVeritas, and discuss his ambitions and his move to a new team.
"I knew that if I was second or third round the last corner then nobody would beat me." And so it proved, as James McCallum added British Criterium Championship gold to Commonwealth Games points bronze, last night in Otley. VeloVeritas spoke to James just hours after his win.
We caught up with Evan after he secured another medal at the British level, this time on the track in the Points Race Championship. Read on to hear Evan's thoughts on his achievement, and whether he's coming back to race on the grass too...
We make no apology for interviewing Jason MacIntyre again. It's not every day that a Scotsman pulls-on a British champion's jersey and the Fort William man did that very thing after Sunday's British circuit time trial championship near Farnborough. In second place was multiple time trial champion and fourth-placed in last winter's Commonwealth Games TT, Michael Hutchison.
Jason MacIntyre followed his outstanding win in the British 25 mile TT Champs with an equally fantastic result in the British Time Trial Championship 2006, taking some superb scalps such as Michael Hutchinson, Jonathan Dayus, and Stuart Dangerfield.
It's been another successful British track championship for the Scottish contingent with two of the blue riband events coming north of the border, the Kilometer to World Champion Chris Hoy and the Sprint to World's Silver Medalist Craig Maclean. In addition, Ross Edgar, Kate Cullen and Evan Oliphant all "medalled" - as the Americans would say. VeloVeritas spoke to Craig MacLean a few days after his win.
Ten years after Graeme Obree became the first Scotsman to win the British 25 Mile Time Trial Championship, Jason MacIntyre has taken the holy grail of time-trialling north of the Antonine Wall again - all the way to Fort William. A common denominator over the ten years has been the presence on the podium of former world points race and team pursuit champion who won the 25 in 1999, Chris Newton [now Recycling, back then with North Wirral].
We had Frank Sinatra for the sprint series last night during the Bremen Six Day 2012, never a bad thing. Bed was just before midnight and I didn't get up until 09:00 - just braw.
Dave Rayner Fund 2018 ‘rider of the year,’ Heriot man, Stuart Balfour has been busy, post-lock down. There have been two top 10 stage places and a seventh on GC in the highly rated UCI 2.2 Tour de Savoie Mont Blanc; then a stage win and second on final GC in the GP Pays de Montbeliard – both race taking place in la Belle France.
If you’re a student of cycling history and want an insight into the 60’s and 70’s cycling scene then Bob Addy's book "The Driller" is a good read for you, taking you from Addy’s days as a youngster finding his feet in the sport through a successful amateur career representing his nation at the highest levels of the amateur sport in events like the Tour de l’Avenir and the savage, East European Peace Race, before turning pro and riding the Tour de France.
The deal is that they have four static bikes on rollers hooked up to a magnetic ‘cycle track’ – Scalextrix style - with little ‘Lego figures’ on tiny bikes on the track. The harder you pedal, the faster your little figure goes. Scottish honour was upheld by VeloVeritas with Martin posting fastest heat against Berteld Van de Velde, "the Moules Guy" at time of leaving...
You’ve got to get here first, right? Even by Ryanair punishment flight standards, it was a sore one. The lady in front of me, I’m sure was taking her kids to audition for; ‘Devil Spawn of Berlin, The Revenge’ – they’ll get the parts, no problem.
The Giro; for the weeks before and during it’s like the Death Star, sucking all other cycling results in and destroying them. But one result we couldn’t let pass without comment was Evan Oliphant’s splendid win in the Premier Calendar Tour of the Reservoir. Congratulations to Evan for turning round a Stage One deficit of five seconds to overall victory in The Reservoir by 13 seconds over Team UK Youth’s Chris Opie, the man who took that first stage.